The first of the spiny jiddaras opened its weird mouth sideways and roared up into the sky, then bounded up toward them.

“Get some cover,” Daniels called, and pulled up his bow to fire the first of what would be many arrows. Dane was dismayed to see the thing turn its completely wrong-shaped head and just eat the arrow whole. It had an eye on either side of its head, two front facing eyes above that mouth, and ears perhaps a foot high. Right now they twitched and shifted like a cat’s.

Dane got some cover all right, and looked through his inventory. Between the village and here they’d only found some frogbats, but he’d also taken a couple of components off the ruins, some rusted ancient parts and some frogbat tongue. Without thinking it over too much, he assembled a y-shaped thing from ancient parts, put a spring in between the V part and the handle, and slimed the whole thing in frogbat tongue. It meant losing his gloves, because they immediately stuck to the hideous new gadget he’d constructed. A cave gibbon throat sac later and he had himself the ugliest slingshot that had ever been constructed.

Soon after, the monster caught up with Daniels, only to have a crossbow bolt slam into its head from the left, and then the right. The HP bar above its head was still over halfway full though, and while it took two more arrows from Pugh and Guzman, it reached forward and snatched up Daniels bodily.

“LT!” Niederhauer screamed, and broke cover.

Daniels had had enough time to drop the bow, grab his hammer, and slam it between the thing’s giant chomping jaws, which stopped it from chomping his entire upper half. That thing had a three foot handle for a very good reason.

Dane took aim with a sharp rock and let fly.

You’ve dealt 4 damage to the spiny jiddara!

Unfortunately you’ve failed a Luck (Serendipity) roll. Your colossal lack of Luck has endangered a team member. Oopsie-doodle.

Dane watched in disbelief as his stone bounced off one of the jiddara teeth, rebounded back toward Daniels, and wouldn’t you know it, knocked the war hammer out of its craw. A moment later, Daniels had been lifted bodily in the air, crushed between its huge jaws and bazillions of teeth, and swallowed up. There was no time to scream, he was just gone.

Niederhauer roared and shot it with another crossbow round, watching the bolt scornfully as it splintered against the thick armor of the creature, scoring no damage at all.

“This thing is garbage,” he snarled, letting it clatter to the ground. The creature screeched and swooped down. Neiderhauer dropped under its arc, drawing his big sword.

“Dane,” he spit to the side. “Get off of your worthless ass and do something!”

Dane scrambled back, his face a rictus of awe as the second beast flew into view. It dove down hard and fast, its wings folded together against its body, their membranes fluttering like tapestry in a windstorm. He brought forth its eagle just as Neiderhauer blasted the creature, screaming a maddened roar. His weapon rebounded with an audible shock that clearly would have shattered the bones of a lesser being, like himself. But he clearly did damage to the beast, he saw, the creature rising up trailing a short lived mist of bloody drizzle. Damn.

“Find us a way out of here,” Dane told his eagle. It rose up but not high, staying out of the blazing eyes of the spiny jiddara.

Neiderhauer turned to face him again, and this time he didn’t look nearly so cocky. His body radiated a light green fog and his face was slack.

“I don’t feel so good, Dane,” he stated. A resounding screech sounded and Neiderhauer gave himself a furious shake, snarling again for good measure. “Come at me, asshole.” He hefted his blade again and twisted it far to the side as if he planned to cleave the creature in two.

“Skrah!” it screamed, diving down again. It swung closer and closer, then all at once he wasn’t where he had been standing. Neiderhauer dropped his sword and leaped, a snarl of bloodthirsty anger humming in his draconian throat as he did so. The spiny jiddara tried to pull up short, giving a confused and surprised squawk. But Neiderhauer hadn’t hesitated, and his aim was true. His scaly body slammed the beast into the dirt, damaging it heavily. Yet it still wasn’t dead.

Around him it was utter madness. The soldiers ran and fought, all having gone to melee now that they knew their missile attacks were worthless. And they were losing. Guzman toppled, her health low, and Pugh blocked what would have been the felling blow, but took significant damage and stumbled. Daniels wheeled like a cat, his thick stocky dwarf body tumbling out of harms way once, twice, but not a third. He was sent briefly airborne as the creature struck him at speeds rivaling those of a fighter plane. Dane found himself yelling, and he couldn’t stop. He began to run to Neiderhauer, to do what he could, when the dragon man was struck in the neck, scattering a shower of red drops.

This was more than unwinnable. This was insane.

Neiderhauer glanced back at Dane with a look full of utter incredulity and yet scathing disappointment.

Dane, for his part, stopped shrieking and shrank back behind a tree, unable to watch. The second, larger, beast, which had more hit points, was tossing the rest of the team around as if they were chew toys. The two beasts were going to flat out murder all his people.

“Hoorah!” One then another yelled the battle slogan. But it was weak and without feeling. The Rangers were defeated; they knew, it and the jiddara knew it too.

Dane sank into the undergrowth, eyes closed, listening to the clanging of steel, the bellows of pain, and soon after, silence.

But, gradually, Dane became aware that he wasn’t dead, that the others weren’t screaming out in agony, and that the roaring of the spiny jiddaras was defensive, then pained, and finally silent. He also heard some non-creature roaring going on, the clangor of steel, and that meant…

The pop-up window startled him, like a jump scare straight out of a horror film.

Quest Failed! – A Random Encounter

A pair of ravenous beasts tore your shit up and would’ve killed your whole party except that a quartet of sexy, capable adventurers took pity on you? Or these hot singles were just in your area? It’s unclear. What’s clear is, you done fucked up.

No reward for you.

He poked his head out from cover after reading that confusing and insulting notification window, and was immediately smitten.

The catgirl before him, the felinian, had blotches of reddish fur, and crazily green eyes. Eyes like nobody you’d ever seen on earth. She was wearing full metal boots, the olden-day kind with the long spike coming off the middle of the toe, some clothes in the middle, a billowing cloak, and held a phantom dagger made of purple energy. She was also crouched on top of the spiny jiddara and wiping her other dagger off on its fur… spikes. Fur in between the spikes.

***

Rivera, Niederhauer and the others rushed to the dead beast and dragged a dagger across the thing’s gigantic belly, and wouldn’t you know it, Daniels spilled out. It was the most disgusting thing Dane had ever seen in his thirty-two years of life, and he’d once seen a beagle puppy eat its own poop. No hesitation, it just went, spun, and decided it hadn’t finished with that, thanks.

He shuddered.

So did Daniels, who was still encased in stomach. They cut him free of that, and cheered when he gasped for breath.

Dane wandered over to the fray, to find the cat girl had allies. Three of them, to be precise. One was a white tiger version of the felinian, another a dwarf with twin rapiers, and the third a giant of a human with an even bigger sword.

They made introductions while healing each other up, cleaning digestive juices off Daniels, recovering their weapons, looting the corpses, and repeatedly kicking the one that had eaten their lieutenant.

“You… did you come through the portal?”

“Twice now, hey,” the girl replied, and hopped off the carcasse. She extended a hand. “Priscilla, atcha service.”

She had an accent. His smittenness deepened by a factor of it-didn’t-matter, because he was already in over his head.

“Uh, Dane.”

“Uh, Dane?” she grinned.

“Just Dane.” He shook his head, swore at the laughing Rangers, and said, “Please, call me Dane.”

She swept a hand back toward the three others with her. “Well we got Rinna, healer, Drell, skirmisher, and Hale, our tank.”

“Still not clear what a tank is!” Hale offered from a good twenty feet off.

“They’re from the other side, they are. Wot’s the deal ‘ere?” she asked. “You’re only level 5?”

“We’ll be level 6 in no time,” Daniels grumbled.

“Priscilla,” Dane said. “This is Daniels. He’s the, uh, leader of the operation.”

Priscilla regarded the dwarf, still covered in blood and digestive juices. Rivera was presently removing jiddara teeth from his arms, but Daniels swatted him away.

“Leader, eh?”

Daniels didn’t rise to the bait. He cocked a thumb and pointed over his shoulder at the castle town standing beside the portal. “We’re headed that way. We ‘ave ourselves a quest.”

“Oh yeah, I’d bet yer headed to take out the Five.”

Daniels just nodded stoically.

She laughed in his face for a few seconds before realizing he wasn’t joking. “Listen, it’s not gonna work, got it?”

“I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about.”

“Yer people couldn’t take down me ex, let alone the Five. It just ain’t gonna happen, innit? I bet I could take half yer people out without even tryin’,” Priscilla said, and drew chuckles from Rinna, Drell and Hale. “And that’s without me stalwart companions.”

Niederhauer had the gall to laugh. “Lady, I got fire breath. You wouldn’t last a minute.”

“Bet stands, big boy,” Priscilla said. She turned and stared at Dane, and he had the sudden embarrassing feeling that he’d been caught with his pants down. It was confirmed when she winked. “I’ll take on any one a’ yous in one-on-one combat, and I’m just level 9 now.”

“Any one of us,” Daniels said.

“Correct.”

“Versus just you. Not your cronies. You alone.”

Drell stepped forward and jabbed a finger at the Rangers. “Sissy boy sounds like a stak’n Democrat.”

All discussion ceased for a time, and all eyes turned on Drell for a moment. Eventually though Pugh chuckled.

“Make it two of you,” Priscilla said. “You pick the place also.”

“And what happens if we win?”

“I’ll get behind you and throw my whole weight into helpin’ ya accomplish yer high-an-mighty mission. I’ll make all me cards available ta divvy up as ye see fit. Maybe, if ya impress these three, they’ll come join ya also.”

Dane watched this uneasily. It was almost inevitable that he’d end up on the butt end of this one, facing off against this cat person who was also a Shadow Walker. He barely had a serviceable weapon, and had no earthly clue what a Shadow Walker was all about. He started to clear his throat and begin protesting, but Daniels nodded sharply.

“Niederhauer and Rivera.”

“All right,” she said. “Where to then?”

“You stay there. I’ll signal you when our people are in position.”

Dane watched while the pair of Rangers left to grab some high ground. They climbed up a rocky outcropping sticking from this hill just behind them, got in position, and waved a flag at her.

“That’s how it is, then?” Priscilla the cat lady laughed, cracked her neck to either side, and broke into a jog.

Dane watched the scene that followed closely. He was tempted to get into the felinian species abilities, but didn’t have time before attacks from the crossbows started failing. Priscilla got about fifty yards in, with another hundred or so to go, when suddenly copies of her appeared nearby, all sprinting in different directions. More bolts fell, one exploding and taking one of the Priscillas in the leg, but it didn’t even wink out of existence. Instead that one took a quick knee, then got up and sprinted on.

They kept zigging and zagging… she’d already worked out the timing on the crossbows. The last time, as she neared the base of the sharp rocky escarpment, all four of them leapt high into the air. One of the four caught a crossbow bolt in the chest and vanished in a puff of black smoke, while the other three landed, changed direction, and leapt up a good thirty feet again.

Dane had never seen someone move so fast. She reminded him of the explosive power of those crocadillos, but they’d gone from zero to full speed for only a handful of moments. Priscilla was explosion after explosion, a Fourth of July finale.

She juked and then dove away from the last round of crossbow bolts in closing the distance, and now Dane watched through the eyes of his familiar as Niederhauer blasted one of her with his fire breath… and missed. She rolled aside and came at them from three different angles.

From there it was practically all over. Rivera started taking wide, slow swings she had no trouble dodging. She jabbed him with a flaming dagger and another purplish dagger, repeatedly. Back and forth they went, until Rivera stumbled, took a knee, and fell on his back.

She turned her attention to Niederhauer, who had taken to trying to batter her with his crossbow. At this he only succeeded in taking out another one of her clone things… it puffed out just in time for her to hamstring him, stab him another time for good measure, then launch herself thirty feet away with those horrible boots. It was a comedy of errors, with Niederhauer spinning and trying to nock an arrow, only to have her dodge out of the way and another one of her to get him in the back of the leg, or the arm.

“She’s got them both, doesn’t she?” Drell asked.

“Sure does,” Dane said.

“She said she was a kindergarten teacher before the portal. Know what that’s about?” Hale asked.

Dane threw back his head and laughed. “It means she’s about two steps below Special Forces on the stress and danger scale of her job.” This didn’t seem to satisfy Hale. Amazing that a human had no idea what Special Forces were. He was forced to concede that he might really be from the world beyond the portal.

Guzman also laughed, the first time he’d heard her do that. In fact she laughed, and laughed, and then kept on laughing so long she wasn’t even producing sound any longer. She doubled over, clutching her sides, and slowly lowered to the ground. Dane wondered if she’d deal herself damage… and whether she could die of laughter.

“Is she… usually like that?” Rinna asked.

“Democrats,” Drell muttered darkly, and also with plenty of lofty dismissal. Guzman wheezed out another few pained laughs, shaking her head back and forth.

“That is hideous,” Rinna said. “I don’t know I’ve ever seen a fae in that position.”

“You mean elves… uh, fae… don’t laugh?”

“Not like that,” Rinna replied, with a pained expression.